NEW YORK (AP) – Six could be seen peering out
from a chain drug store on Broadway. One protruded
awkwardly from the awning of a fast-food restaurant. A super-sized, domed
version hovered like a flying saucer outside Columbia University.

All were surveillance cameras and – to the dismay
of civil libertarians and with the approval of law enforcement – they’ve
been multiplying at a dizzying rate all over Manhattan.

“ As many as we find, we miss so many more,”
Alex Stone-Tharp, 21, said on a recent afternoon while combing the streets,
clipboard in hand, counting cameras in the scorching heat.

A student at Sarah Lawrence, Stone-Tharp is among a
dozen college interns enlisted by the New York Civil Liberties Union to
bolster their side of a simmering debate over whether surveillance cameras
wrongly encroach on privacy, or effectively combat crime and even terrorism
– as in the London bombings investigation, when the cameras were used
to identify the bombers.

The interns have spent the summer stalking Big Brother
– collecting data for an upcoming NYCLU report on the proliferation
of cameras trained on streets, sidewalks, and other public spaces.

At last count in 1998, the organization found 2,397
cameras used by a wide variety of private businesses and government agencies
throughout Manhattan. This time, after canvassing less than a quarter of
the borough, the interns so far have spotted more than 4,000.

The preliminary total “only provides a glimpse
of the magnitude of the problem,” said NYCLU Executive Director Donna
Lieberman. “Nobody has a clue how many there really are.”

But aside from sheer numbers, the NYCLU says it’s
concerned about the increasing use of newer, more powerful digital cameras
that – unlike boxy older models – can be controlled remotely
and store more images.

The group expects to eventually publicize its findings
to convince the public that the cameras should be regulated to preserve
privacy and guard against abuses like racial profiling and voyeurism. Privacy
advocates have cited a case earlier this year in which a police videotape
that captured a suicide at a Bronx housing development later turned up on
a pornographic web site.

The NYCLU plans to post an interactive map on its web
site pinpointing the location of each surveillance camera, and it may include
a feature for the camera-shy that would highlight the least-surveilled route
between two points.
But the map could be obsolete on arrival.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to
spend up to $250 million to install new surveillance cameras in the city’s
vast subway system. The New York Police Department also has requested funding
for about 400 digital video cameras to help combat robberies and burglaries
in busy commercial districts.

Police officers already watch live feeds from hundreds
of cameras in city housing projects throughout the five boroughs, where
“they are a proven deterrent,” NYPD spokesman Paul Brown said.

NYPD detectives also regularly rely on private security
cameras to help solve crimes. After makeshift grenades exploded outside
the British consulate in midtown Manhattan in May, they studied scores of
videotape and concluded that a still-unidentified cyclist likely tossed
the devices before fleeing.

In London, British police used videotape from some
of their Underground system’s 6,000 cameras to help identify the suicide
bombers on July 7 and the suspects in a failed attack on July 21.

Elsewhere, Chicago recently spent roughly $5 million
on a 2,000-camera system, which has been credited for reducing crime to
its lowest point in some 40 years. In Washington, D.C., Homeland Security
officials have announced plans to spend $9.8 million for surveillance cameras
and sensors on a rail line near the Capitol. And in Philadelphia, where
the city has increasingly relied on video surveillance, cameras caught a
murder and ultimately led to the capture of a suspect.

The NYCLU’s Lieberman concedes the cameras can
help solve crimes. But she claims there’s no proof that they deter
terrorism or more mundane crime, and some critics say it just pushes crime
to where the cameras aren’t.

“ No one’s saying there should be no video
cameras, but let’s not look at them as a quick fix,” she said.

Whether the cameras threaten or protect society, the
interns have encountered hurdles in their counting.

At one point, uniformed officers outside the Federal
Reserve Bank demanded identification and warned, “if the information
we had fell into the hands of terrorists, it would be a problem,”
said Peter Pantelis, 20, a student at the University of Pennsylvania.

Susanna Groves, 19, of the University of Michigan,
recalled finding herself staring up an ornate streetlight, convinced a hidden
camera was snapping pictures of her.

“ I know I’m getting paranoid,”
she said. “But I also know there are a lot of cameras out there.”

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